Planning Ahead for a Downshifted Future

Dear friends,

Here's a new story on LifeMeetsWork.com, about planning for a downshifted future:

Planning Ahead for a Downshifted Future

By Liz Ryan

"Downshifting" came into the workplace vocabulary a decade ago. Back then, the term was applied to go-go executives who wanted a slower pace and more work/life balance, and sought less-demanding jobs to provide those things.

Downshifting is still a term used by stressed-out mid-career executives looking for work outside the pressure cooker. But new downshifters have joined the party—parents looking to spend more time at home, veteran workers seeking jobs with fewer hours, and even young employees looking for ways to get off the treadmill and enjoy themselves before taking on the high-ticket commitments of house and family.

Can you downshift successfully, without going broke? You can do it—hundreds of thousands of people have. Downshifting is a career shift just like a switch in industries or functions; it takes planning and focus. Here are some tips for creating a downshift plan for yourself and working it to create your downshifted future.

Know your priorities, and your needs.

I've known at least a dozen parents who have announced "I'm going to find a part-time job at half my pay level, and spend afternoons with the kids" and have spent time and energy going after those things, only to learn through painful experience that part-time jobs don't tend to pay enough to cover the costs of diapers and piano lessons.

The first step in building your downshift plan is to know what you're after, and what you can afford to give up to get there. The four-hour work week is a great idea, but it's not a near-term reality for most of us.

Make a budget, and be clear about why you're looking to get out of the rat race. A generalized notion like "My job is too stressful" may not fill the bill when you can't take vacation on your downshifted salary.

Study the landscape.

Many downshifters look to part-time jobs (W-2 positions or part-time consulting roles) or to not-for-profit opportunities when they plan their downshifted futures, because of the associated reduction in hours (part-time jobs) and/or stress (not-for-profit jobs).

Here's where it pays to do your research. One mom at my kids' school earns $49,000/year without missing a classroom trip or an afternoon pick-up, and is delighted with her downshifted life. Another mom at the same school left a PR executive role to head up a local not-for-profit, and now works more hours than she did before (for half the pay).

Investigate opportunities closely; if an employer squirms when you mention "work/life balance" the shop may not be a downshifter's paradise.

To read the full story, please jump here.

Why Yes, I Do Blame You for Trying

My friend Ellis is a marketing consultant. "Get this," he tells me. "This woman's been asking me for marketing advice for three years. We've talked and talked; she's never hired me. Now she says 'I need your help! Naturally, with the economy how it is I can't pay your full rate.'"

"What did you say?" I asked.

"I told her I'd be happy to help, but it'll take awhile for my schedule to free up, since I'm busy with clients who see the value of marketing in a down economy. I told her I've raised my rates a bit for '09, and I sent her the new pricing information."

"Oh mama!" I said. "I'm used to it," said Ellis.

I heard from another friend who writes Web site copy in Chicago. "I got a call out of the blue from a not-for-profit I've never heard of," she said. "We spent 40 minutes on the phone talking Web site copy. I should've asked about budget earlier than I did, because when I broached that issue, the lady said 'We have no budget! We're a not-for-profit agency.' I don't know these people from Adam, but I'm supposed to write their Web site copy for free."

"Has that happened to you before?" I asked.

"Ten thousand times, at least," she said. "After we got off the phone I browsed their Web site -- which really does need new copy. They're building a new headquarters -- looks swanky in the architect's drawings. Guess my puny fee would have cut into the drapery budget, or something."

Eventually it was my turn. I got a call from a fellow in California who enjoyed one of my columns. He thought I'd make a great speaker for a gathering of the Old Ivy Alumni Club.

"We can't pay a fee or travel expenses, but we get A-list speakers nonetheless," he said.

"That is magnificent," I told him. "As much as I'd love to join you and the Old Ivy grads, it would be unethical of me to do that, as so many clubs and associations have paid me to speak."

"Ha!" said the gentleman. "I figured you'd say that. Well, someone will bite eventually. Can't blame me for trying!"

Ellis checked in again. "How's that lady you were telling me about?" I asked. "She's great," he said. "She invited me to a brainstorming meeting where six of her 'friends' -- me and God knows which other consultants she's never hired -- are gathering to Toss Around Ideas.

"I said I'd be happy to come and I mentioned my hourly rate. It sounded like she plotzed on the floor then and there."

"Ellis," I wondered, "with the economy being tough and all, is the lady lowering her company's prices?"

"Are you joking?" he chortled. "Bodywork services. She's telling her customers, 'If you don't need a massage now, when will you need one?' She tells them, 'It's an INVESTMENT!'"

We had a good laugh about that. My Chicago friend heard from three other writers who'd been pitched by the same writing-is-cheap, construction-fees-are-no-object agency. I wonder how the building contractor would have responded to the we-so-needy pitch. Not sure that line would carry water with a Chicago builder. Still, why not give it a go? You can't blame a person for trying.

Interview with Kyra Cavanaugh, founder of LifeMeetWork.com

Dear friends,

Before Christmas, I was happy to be able to chat with Kyra Cavanaugh, founder and president of LifeMeetsWork and the publisher of www.LifeMeetsWork.com. In this time of economic upheaval, is work/life management feasible or even on a smart business leader's agenda? Here, Kyra explains why work/life issues still matter.

INTERVIEW WITH KYRA CAVANAUGH, FOUNDER OF LIFEMEETSWORK.COM

LIZ: Kyra, thanks for joining us today. We're curious what you've been hearing about work/life issues lately -- lots of people are concerned about keeping a job or getting one, so we're interested to know what people are saying about flexibility at work.

KYRA: We recently conducted a survey of close to 700 working Americans and companies to understand their attitudes about work/life issues.

What we found was that 77% of employers said they offered flexibility programs, most often in the form of accommodation (individual flex plans) or flexible start and end times. But, when we asked employees whether they felt that employers supported their work/life needs, only 20% of them said "yes".

This presents a problem, right? If employers think they're addressing the flexibility needs of their employees with their current programs, but employees don't give them credit for it, then what? Then, employers aren't doing enough, or they aren't doing enough of the "right" things, to get recognized for their efforts.

LIZ: Why is this important?

KYRA: Studies have shown that flexibility is key to employee retention, loyalty, engagement and productivity. So, if employees don't feel employers are providing enough flexibility, then there's a business risk that your employees will leave.

LIZ: Leave? They can't leave, look at the economy.

KYRA: Well, yes and no. Right now, in this economy, in this job market, employees can't change jobs. They're going to hunker down and ride out the storm. But, when you look back at recent history, you'll see what I mean. At the end of the last three recessions, there's been a mass exodus of employees to new companies.

LIZ: Why is that?

KYRA: There are a number of reasons and flexibility is part of it:

1) Layoffs erode employee morale and employee loyalty. There is a pervasive sense on the part of the employee that the company doesn't care about them. Even though they can't take action at the time, they file that away and when they can make a move at the end of a recession, they do.

2) There's little room for advancement during a down economy. That hunker down mentality applies to companies too. Opportunities for promotions, new projects, and other career advancement opportunities slow down. Raises and company bonuses are cut back and workers' earning potential is squelched. So, when the job market rebounds, so do career advancement opportunities with other companies.

3) Forward-looking companies recognize that flexibility is a competitive advantage. It goes beyond just the benefits that are being offered to something deeper. The only way you can run a successful flexible workplace is to TRUST your employees. When employees know that they're trusted, productivity improves and word hits the street about their culture: think Google, Southwest Airlines, and Microsoft in their day (remember how astonished we were that employees could work in the middle of the night and bring their dogs to work?)

So, when the economy turns around, where do your best employees want to go? To cool companies where the pressure to perform is intense, but where employees are given the freedom to succeed without having the "how and where" managed by the company.

LIZ: But, there are always people in an organization who complain and want more than what we’re able to do for them, isn’t that the case here?

KYRA: It would be easy to pass off as whiners employees who desire increased recognition and acknowledgement of their flexibility needs. Or, to think that they have unrealistic expectations. But, the problem is that the labor market is tightening. In a recent SHRM Workplace Forecast survey, six of the top ten trends for 2008-2009 involve threats to the current workforce: baby boomers retiring, shortage of skilled workers. Companies acknowledge that they need to find ways to retain their employees (that was trend number 5 in the SHRM study).

LIZ: So, what's a company to do, if they feel like they're trying but it isn't enough?

KYRA: We offered a number of ideas in our webinar which you can get by watching the rebroadcast on our website. But here are a couple of ideas:

1) Consider new technology solutions without spending an arm and a leg:
Replace desktops with laptops when the leases are up.
Consider cloud computing (migrating file sharing, project management systems, calendars to the internet)
2) Rethink the FTE default. What I mean is: we tend to automatically define every job as full-time, onsite.
Before you post to fill a job, think about whether it could be cut in half and performed by two part-timers by dividing up the accounts, or responsibilities in some other way.
Consider whether the job requires the employee to be onsite at all times.
3) Rework position descriptions to be performance and measurement based. Describe the results that you expect from that position (and how they'll be measured) rather than documenting what the position does.

Once you’ve made these sorts of changes, then you've laid the groundwork for going flex. Looking at the examples I just mentioned, let's follow it through:
--Employees can work from home because they have the technology in place to do it.
--Employees will be able to maintain their same job-level when they want to work part-time.
--Managers won't have to see their employees everyday because the performance expectations have been laid out and the employee will have agreed that's how they'll be evaluated.

I think it goes back to that old question, “How do you eat an elephant?” “One bite at a time.” It’s too intimidating to say "today we’re going to start converting to a flexible workplace". No one has that kind of time, energy or luxury.

But, by examining how your company functions, and then taking small steps, in the course of your daily business to move your company toward becoming more flexible over time is much more realistic.

Given the economic and demographic realities companies are facing, I’m not sure you have a choice.

Can Human-Voiced Resumes Surmount Keyword Searches?

Liz and Hiring Managers – I have a question about human-voiced resumes and how they work with key word searches or are key word searches that once were performed by hiring managers now passé? It seems to me one of the reasons we ended up with “boilerplate” terms in resumes was to match up with key word searches. And I’m a total fan of human-voiced resumes! Thank you, Liz, for the revitalization. Appreciate your feedback. Thanks. Dianne

Great question Dianne -- when we're in functions and industries where
technical or function-specific terms are involved, we've got to get
those terms on our resumes somehow. Organizations that use keyword
searching need to be able to find them. If we want to, we can get
more generic words like "communication" and "teams" into our resumes
without resorting to the hackneyed "excellent communication skills"
and "effective team player" malarkey.

We could create a list of 20 or 30 words we want make sure appear in
our resumes - and get them in there - without using them in their
conventional, dry-as-dust or kill-me-if-I-have-to-read-this-phrase-
again settings.

Let's take the infamous "out of the box thinker." You don't want to
work for a company that would load the phrase "out of the box
thinker" into its keyword search algorithm, and I'm not even being
flippant. No sane HR person would do that. There are far better ways
to use our precious resume real estate to illustrate (not to assert!)
our success in breakthrough thinking than to parrot that idiotic
phrase for the forty-millionth-time.

By keeping the words we believe we need but changing their
arrangement, we can have our human-voiced-resume/keyword-searchable
cake and eat it, too. Carrot cake for me, please!

Cheers - Liz

It's the Culture, Stupid

Liz Ryan: It's the culture, stupid

When my family arrived in Boulder some years ago, our big kids were little and our little one wasn't born. We wanted to meet people and keep the kids busy, so we signed up for every kid activity under the sun.

Skating lessons at the downtown ice rink: delightful! Swimming with Curt Colby: tremendous! Avid4Adventure, Bits, Bytes and Bots and Renaissance Adventures: magnificent! The kids had a blast. I enjoyed meeting the parents. Everyone was happy.

There was only one dark spot on our family activity schedule that year: my daughter's ballet class. The ballet school was unfriendly and poorly run. It felt like a stereotype, a striver's dream, built for parents hell-bent on seeing their kids dance in the Joffrey.

The school had a music program in addition to dance classes. We tried that one, too. Ick! Through the heavy wooden door I could hear the teacher screeching at my third-grader. No thanks! The school was broken, and the malevolent culture was palpable to me as a parent. That's the thing about organizational culture: it's loud.

Years later, I heard the back story. The original, grassroots, warm and inviting music school had undergone a disruptive and unpopular change in control some years before. When we hit town, the effects of that unfortunate series of events were evident. When a culture is broken, clients can tell.

There's an old New Yorker cartoon that shows a CEO barking to an underling, "Get me a corporate culture by Monday morning!" The joke is that, of course, every organization already has a culture. We may love it or hate it or be oblivious to it, but it's there. Whether the culture supports our goals is another question.

I got a call from a CEO this week who said, "I must be crazy calling you now, when conditions are so tough in the marketplace. But I think we could be working together more effectively in my company.

"Our employees aren't rallying around the mission just because we're under competitive pressure. I guess I don't blame them. We need to figure out how to manage in this new environment. I can't afford to have my best people quit on me now, and I need every person's best efforts."

I give the CEO credit, because it would be easy to say "I'm not expending one iota of mental energy on soft-and-squishy people issues now, when our company is under siege." The CEO understood that turnover and motivation and culture are all related. If employees don't care about the game plan, a Dave and Buster's gift certificate will not do much to change their views.

As a newcomer to the broken music-and-dance academy (now out of business, no surprise) my gut told me that the culture was awry. The CEO's gut told him the same thing about his organization.

He decided to act rather than wait for the malaise to magically disappear on its own. He told me "My instinct says that I'd better dig into this topic now, before it badly disrupts my business."

Instinct, gut -- if you can't pay attention to those trusty scouts, who can you listen to?

If Your Boss Could Talk

Working men and women have a tough way to go these days. Longer hours, more work, fewer perks and bennies: and companies are not quite as focused on being "employers of choice" as they were a couple of years ago. But if you think your boss is the source of your higher stress level, you might be surprised. Being a boss - fending off pressure from above and below both - is harder than ever these days. Managers have smaller budgets and fewer staff members to accomplish a lot more work as cash-strapped companies frantically try to turn their fortunes around. Sure, there are incompetent, unfriendly and just-plain-evil bosses out there, but in our experience, the majority of middle managers are reasonable people who are trying to do the best they can for the employees they supervise AND the higher-ups.

Skeptical? You might not think that your supervisor is just as interested in a fair, friendly and reasonable work environment as you are - but he or she has lots of other fish to fry, too. So we've polled middle managers, and developed this list of ten things your manager wants you know - called "If Your Boss Could Talk, [What He or She Would Say]." (Of course your manager can talk - but not every manager feels comfortable sharing these pet peeves and wishes with employees. Do any of these fit your situation?)

Here goes:

1. When I am abrupt and impersonal, it's probably because I'm doing something I don't want to do.

Feel shut down by your boss sometimes? Your great ideas may interest your manager personally, but he or she may not have the approval or the budget dollars to say "yes" very often right now. If your manager is acting squirrelly or suddenly gets very "corporate," it may be because he or she isn't comfortable telling you that The Answer Is No. A rough exterior helps to shield your boss from the reality that it's him (or her) - not a title or a job description - disappointing you once again. A good tactic when this happens, is to ask, "Is this topic uncomfortable for you?" That might throw your manager off enough for him or her to open up and tell you the real problem.

2. I care about a lot of stuff that you care about, but I can't make a federal case out of every slight that you experience - you have to let me pick my battles.

Your boss is, among other things, the one who's supposed to stick up for you when those punks in Marketing or the bureaucrats in Accounting or anybody else in the company does you wrong. But there are only so many battles that one person can fight! So, your boss wants to tell you, I have to let some of these wrangles slide. Don't be disgusted when I don't march off to blast someone in HR on your behalf because they goofed up your insurance claim again. You gotta let things go sometimes.

3. Don't try to make me King Solomon, especially about the small stuff.

Your boss is saying, I know that you and your co-worker both want the cubicle next to the window, but I really don't want to have to make that call - I'd rather see you play Rock-Paper-Scissors, if I had my way. When you try to put me in the King Solomon mode, somebody ends up being upset about something really inconsequential. I'll be very grateful if sometimes you and your colleague can figure these things out on your own. You don't even have to tell me when it happens.

4. I don't want to watch you like a hawk, so don't give me a reason to.

Here the message is, with precious few perks to dole out, I'd love to at least give you some schedule flexibility, the little that the workload allows. I'd let you come in and leave the office when you choose (roughly) as long as the work gets done, if you're a great employee in every other way. So make my job easier, please, and get your work done and don't disappear just when you're most likely to be needed. I can give you a little slack if you work with me, but if you don't, I'll have to come down on you like a ton of bricks.

5. You will always be more familiar with everything about your job than I will ever be.

When we talk, your boss wants to say, Remind me of what you're working on, what's causing you trouble and what's going well. Remind me of what's important to you and what you need from me. It's really hard to remember the priorities, needs, and obstacles of every one of my department members, so any help you can give me is welcome. I do value you, but you're just much closer to your work than I am. I have a different set of priorities, like our department's goals, budget, timelines and hurdles. If I'm micro-managing you in your own work, let me know.

6. When you're angry with me, let me know.

Boss wants to say: I've got a lot on my mind - you could spend two weeks on hard stares, monosyllabic answers to my questions, and other pointed signals that you're mad at me and I might still miss the message. So just tell me! Pick a moment when I'm not up to my eyeballs in crises, and ask me for a quick meeting. Tell me what I did that ticked you off and why it was a bad call. I promise to try and listen and not be defensive. If you don't tell me, how will I know?

7. Don't ask me to tell you what you know I can't talk about.

Are there layoffs coming? Is a big customer planning to shut its doors? Are we merging with XYZ company? If I know, I can' tell you. If I could tell you, I would. Don't ask me to tell you what you know I can't, and don't be offended because you think we're friends and I should spill the beans. Can't do it. Don't create tension by making this unreasonable request.

8. Bring me problems as far in advance as possible.

I love to be surprised when things are going better than expected. I love to hear that a problem was solved or some other good fortune befalls our department. Don't surprise me with bad news, please. Let me know way in advance when something's not working. At the last minute, problems are much harder to solve, so feel the fear and tell me anyway, "Project ABC is behind schedule." I may shoot the messenger just a little, but it's better than my reaction will be further down the road.

9. Create a feedback-network to give me painless advice on my management style.

Here's how this works. If I badger Sally mercilessly and I tend to ignore Joe, then trade feedback bits and deliver them to me in a friendly say. So Sally, say to me, "You know Stan, you're probably not aware of it but at times you seem to miss what Joe is telling you," and then I can take that without being defensive. And Joe, you say to me, "You know what, Stan, for some funny reason, even though you're a patient guy in general, you seem to give Sally a lot of grief." That way, no one has to take the feedback-heat on themselves and I still get the message. This would really be a gift, and I promise to try and take the advice as it's intended.

10. Don't do anything stupid.

I can help you out if you goof up to a certain degree. But if you mis-use the company credit card, download garbage from the internet, or slug a co-worker, I'm out of the loop - you're gone. So help me out, and don't do anything stupid.

What's the gist of what your boss is telling you? Let's work together. Why create tension in the relationship when the environment has enough of that already? You might as well team up with your boss (and vice versa) to lessen the stress and get the job done that much more easily. And if you put yourself in your boss's shoes just a little, you'll be surprised how much you learn. You might even consider becoming a boss yourself!